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Creating a Multilingual Forum | ||
Tags: Forums | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4670 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 8 11 August 2015 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm peeling this off of another thread:
I love the idea of working towards a true world forum, and I've actually given some thought on how we'd get there. It would take a lot of work, and some major structural changes, but I think it's possible. Native speaker moderation Iguanamon already discussed this. Rule changes I very much agree with the intent of the current rules: LANGUAGE Please post messages in English. If you wish to write in a different language, use the Multilingual Lounge or Private Messaging. SPELLING Please spell correctly. If English is not your mother tongue, you may not be able to write every word correctly, but at least try to. If you are a native English speaker, watch your spelling. It is a lack of respect for other users of the forum not to write correctly, even so more in the face of people who had to study your language for years and write it better than you do. If you can't spell it, don't write it. I think we'd want to enforce similar spelling and grammar rules for all languages in any 'front page' posts. Iguanamon also touched on this: If posts are dominated by language learners then it won't be appealing for native speakers. Language practice should still be reserved for the multilingual lounges and personal logs. Interface Having the option to view the site in alternate languages would be a major step towards saying: this site welcomes speakers of all languages, even if they don't know English. We'd want to translate the main pages also (I found the forums through language profiles). This would take a lot of work. Select posts by language Maybe we'll become huge in China ... and be swamped by TAC logs in Cantonese. We'll want a way to sort through posts in our own target languages. Google Outreach We'll want to improve out google rankings as soon as the situation is stabilized, regardless of what changes we make. If I do a search on "How to learn ..." I get similar results for every language I type in: rosetta stone, bbc, babbel, duolingo, wikihow, and fluentin3months always seem to be near the top. I scrolled through 12 pages of results for "How to learn Italian" and HTLAL didn't even show up. This is tragic. Edited by kanewai on 11 August 2015 at 11:09pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5043 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 8 12 August 2015 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Good thoughts, kanewai! This can get things started. I'm glad to see people are thinking outside the box. Just because we have been one way for a long time doesn't mean we have to continue that way. I agree that it won't be easy and, I believe it will take some time to develop. The .org site already has a French, Spanish and Finnish interface. It certainly can be done.
Every so often, I'll see a post here asking about where to find forums like HTLAL in other languages, and... they're just aren't any that compare. If we could somehow provide the same type of forum in some of the world's biggest languages, it would not only be a boon for self-learners all over the world but a huge help to the rest of us as well. Someone is going to do it, it may as well be us :) Edited by iguanamon on 12 August 2015 at 6:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 8 12 August 2015 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Actually, I am going to do it -- partly, at least.
I have wanted to create 'my own HTLAL' for quite some time (years), and now the moment finally approaches when I'll be able to do it. Everything should start happening in some months' time, after I'm done rearranging some servers I administer and putting off the fires that will inevitably arise. If all goes well, I will be only 18 months behind schedule ;) Not that it was a big secret or anything, but so far I only have told some people that I was toying with the idea -- I have been involved in too many projects that didn't even take off, and this being a strictly personal one is prone to suffer all kinds of delays and rearranging of priorities. Heck, I still could end up chucking it. Anyway, the project roughly consists in creating a website to host some home-brewed language 'courses', and some programs to ease the creation of language learning materials I deem of utility. This would be the 'dogmatic' part of the site, for I'll be shaping it according to my own ideas on language learning. I'm very aware there's much more to it, so a forum to exchange ideas will play pretty much the same role as HTLAL, with one key difference: my site will be oriented to language learners that are either native Spanish speakers or proficient enough to communicate in Spanish. If interest in collaborative writing is sparked, I may add a Wiki. Going truly 'multilingual' as you propose is something I would considerate only if I achieve some degree of success with all of this, as I just got that idea from here and the task would be immense. My 'tools', however, will be open to speakers of all languages from the get-go. I don't know if I should give any more details about it, perhaps it would be more prudent to wait until I can start it for real. But if you want to know anything about it, just ask. This project could be, of course, integrated in some grander scheme of things if people here are interested. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4947 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 4 of 8 12 August 2015 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I volunteer to write copiously about language learning in Portuguese, but I'd also be interested into writing about language learning in French, Norwegian or any other upper-intrmediate languages. If the motto 'if you can't spell it, don't write it' should be reinforced, I should stop writing for once then. I have the feeling i've been repeating myself for a long time already, so at least I should try saying the same things into different languages and gain some practice. And provided the discussion is interesting, I'd also be more interested into reading other non-native posts.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5043 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 8 12 August 2015 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Spelling can be easily solved by installing an extension within your browser. I use firefox so here's how to install a multilingual spell checker in firefox and here are the dictionaries/language packs so you can see what's available. It's a simple solution that I use everyday. Sadly, it won't correct grammar :(.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4947 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 6 of 8 13 August 2015 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Right, but I do mean grammar. I usually run spellcheck for my weaker languages even if just with Google Translate.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| solocricket Tetraglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3457 days ago 68 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Icelandic, Korean, Polish | Message 7 of 8 14 August 2015 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would be excited to write on a multilingual forum in Spanish or French. A reason I
often cut down my time scrolling through this forum is that it's all in English, and I don't really need to practice my English.... Now, if @mrwarper 's Spanish language forum works out, I could waste hours and hours on there guilt-free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 8 of 8 14 August 2015 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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There's only so much you are ready to say (and hear) about languages, so one important reason why I have been crawling around 'so much' here is that I could practice English as a bonus :)
Technically I could set everything up in a few days, but I don't think it would be all right to prioritize it over other stuff I have to do. I, of course, will let you all know if everything works out and I can make it happen. Meanwhile, and now the cat's out of the bag, I'm open to questions either here or by PM. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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